Our Lady of Guadlalupe
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Posted on 12/12/2001 7:21:41 AM PST by Cap'n Crunch
In the year 1531 in Mexico, the Holy Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego, a peasant who was converting to Catholicism. It was the 9th of December, the original feast day of the Immaculate Conception, when Juan Diego was on his way to the Church for instruction and to hear Holy Mass. Juan heard someone calling him "Juanito...Juan Dieguito." Juan Diego looked to the top of Tepeyac Hill and saw a lady of overpowering brillance and beauty, who's garments shone like the sun. She appeared to be about 14 years old.
The Lady introduced herself in these words: "Know for certain, dearest of my sons, that I am the perfect and perpetual Virgin Mary, Mother of the True God, through whom everything lives, the Lord of all things, who is Master of Heaven and Earth. I ardently desire that a temple be built here for me where I will show and offer all my love, my compassion, my help and my protection to the people. I am your merciful Mother, the Mother of all who live united in this land, and of all mankind, of all those who love me, of those who cry to me, of those who have confidence in me. Here I will hear there weeping and sorrows, and will remedy and alleviate their sufferings, necessites and misfortunes." She told Juan Diego to go the Bishop Zumarraga and tell him what he had seen and heard.
Juan Diego bowed reverently and said "My Holy One, my Lady, I will do what you ask of me."
Bishop Zumarraga had been sent by Spain to the New World to convert and instruct the native people. At that time in Mexico human sacrifice to the gods Quetelcoatl and Coatlicue, and various other pagan gods were occuring, as many as 20,000 victims would be sacrificed at the dedication of a temple.
Bishope Zumarraga had not been having much success converting the Aztec and native people and distrust and anger was spreading amongst the two. He had been praying to God for assistance and a sign, the sign was that of roses. Roses would be the sign that Bishop Zumarraga wanted in order to know that he was doing the right thing. But now it was December and roses were not blooming.
Juan Diego arrived and was greeted by the Bishop. The Bishop welcomed him warmly but upon hearing his story dismissed him pleasantly. Juan Diego thought he had failed and after hearing Mass and instruction returned to his home.
Our Lady appeared to him again, asking him if he had had success with the Bishop. Juan told Our Lady that he did not think the Bishop believed him and that perhasps she should send someone of greater importance. Our Lady smiled at Juan Diego, telling him that she had chosen him to be the deliverer of the message and urged him to return to the Bishop the next day and again make the request.
Juan Diego did return the next day and again gave the Bishop the message. Bishop Zumarraga was surprised to see Juan Diego again so soon. He questioned him a bit at length and again dismissed him. Now he wondered if there were something too Juans message. Before dismissing Juan Diego the Bishop told Juan that he needed a sign from the Lady to be convinced. Juan asked the Bishop what kind of sign he would like and he would tell the Lady the Bishops reequest. The Bishop told Juan that he would leave the sign up to the Lady to deliver.
On his way back home Juan Diego again encountered Our Lady. He told her that the Bishop had requested a sign but did not say what the sign should be. Our Lady told Juan: "That is very well,my little son, return here tomorrow and you will have the sign he requested." She also told him that he would be rewarded for all he had done on her behalf.
When Dec. 11th came Juan Diegos uncle, Juan Bernardino, was gravely ill and Juan Diego stayed by his side and did not go to the Bishop. All night he prayed and attended to his uncle until the morning of the 12th when his uncle took a turn for the worse. Juan wanted to get a priest to enable his uncle to recieve the sacraments before he died.
Juan now had a dilemma, if he went past Tepeyac hill he was sure to encounter the Lady. He wanted to get the priest in order to bring him to his uncle before he died but did not want to disappoint Our Lady so he decided to go around the other side of Tepeyac hill. He thought that surely Our Lady would understand.
As Juan Diego tried to duck Our Lady he was suddenly intercepted by her, as she called out to him "What is the matter my little son?" "Where are you going?" Juan explained to the Lady "Noble Lady, it will grieve you to hear what I have to say. My uncle, your poor servant, is very sick. He is suffering from the plague and is dying. I am hurrying to the Church in Mexico City to call a priest to here his confession and give him the last rites. When I have done this, I will return here immediately to convey your message." "Please forgive me and be patient with me. I am not decieving you. I promise to faithfully come here tomorrow with all haste."
There was a pause. Our Lady looked at Juan Diego and uttered the words that have rung down through nearly 5 centuries. "Listen and let it penetrate your heart, my dear little son, do not be troubled or weighed down with grief. Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else you need?" She then assured Juan that his uncle would not die from his illeness and at this very moment was cured.
She told Juan to go to the top of Tepeyac Hill and pick as many flowers as he could carry and bring them down to her. Juan climbed the hill and could not believe the multitude of Castilian Roses blooming on the top. They were blooming out of season. He gathered as many as he could carry and brought them down to Our Lady, who arranged them in his tilma (poncho made of cactus plant fibers. Our Lady arranged them and folded them up in Juans tilma. She told him that this was the sign that the Bishop wanted and to take them to him.
Juan Diego finally got in to see the Bishop with his bundle. The Bishop recieved Juan and Juan told him the following. "Your Excellency, I obeyed your instructions, very early this morning, the celestial Lady told me to come and see you again. I asked for the sign which you requested and which she had promised to give me. She told me to climb to the top of the hill where I had previously seen her, to pick the flowers growing there. I knew quite well that the summit of the hill was no place for flowers to grow, especially this time of year, but I did not doubt her word. When I reached the top, I was astonised to find myself surrounded by beautiful flowers. I plucked as many as I could carry and brought them back to her. She arranged them with her own hands and replaced them in my robe in order that I might bring them to you. Here they are. Behold, recieve them." With that Juan Diego released the ends of his tilma and the flowers, mingled with Castillian Roses, cascaded to the floor in a profusion of colour and perfume.
Zumarraga gazed speechless at the roses, the sign that he had been praying for peace in the country. Full of wonder he lifted his eyes back up to Juan Diego to find that the tilma now had an image of Our Lady appearing on it.
From that day, December 12th 1531, the tilma has survived, miraculously. At that time 8 million Mexicans and Aztec Indians converted to Catholicism. The human sacrifice to the pagan gods ceased.
For nearly 500 years there have been miracles through Our Lady and the tilma. Scientists have studied it, socialist revolutionaries tried to destroy it, there have been volumes written about the tilma, which is very much like the Shroud of Turin.
On this feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which means to the Aztecs "she who crushes the head of the serpent" I would urge you to read the story, say some special prayers to Our Lady, particularly to end the human sacrifice of abortion in this country.
It's all in there. But be careful, you might just become Catholic.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/
Go for it!
When you see that, scroll down just a bit further to one of his writigs entitled "On Holy Virginity," I think you will find it quite beautiful, and enlightening.
Several other saints wrote about Holy Virginity also.
Col 2:8 8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. (NIV) "
Do you think that someone grounded in their faith is going to go against what scripture says by the writings of old church fathers, some of them writing more than 300 years after Christ? Unless you can show some proof that these men had anymore insight into the bible than say a Biily Graham your argument is foolish. The early church fathers and the scholars of today have one thing in common. They are fallible men. The time of their birth in relationship to the birth of Christ has nothing to do with their knowing the truth.In all due respect, you would be better off studying the scriptures that were inspired by God instead of looking for writings of men that have the same error in doctrine that you do.
Basically your argument is that these men prove what you believe. The Mormons do this, they can point you to Joseph Smith as proof of their beliefs. The JW,s and all the rest do the same thing.
We believe you are wrong and no matter how many writings from infallible men you point us too doesn't change that.
Narrow is the gate... few find it (Paraphrase). Heresy does not become a truth because of the number of people who believe it.
One last thought. Augustine wrote that we should believe nothing that can't be backed by scripture. Do you agree with him on this? I find it funny that I never hear this mentioned about this cornerstone of Christian belief.
There are writings by the Apostles themselves, so you mean to say that for one moment they wrote the inspired word of God and the next minute they were completely clueless?
Curious that so many of them, some of them direct disciples of the Apostles, wrote the same thing.
If you have the entire thing on CD, why don't you try reading it? Doesn't sound to me that you have. If you had, then at the very least you would understand the Catholic position because it is the same today as it was from Pentecost.
If these holy men had not stood up and defended truth, it would have been awash years ago. The evidence of that is the many heresies which they crushed throughout the centuries.
Hopefully we can agree on that point.
The short answer is: Mary comes as a pregnant woman because she is coming to a completely pagan land. To them Jesus hasn't been born yet because they haven't heard the Good News. It had to be something drastic and it had to get the attention of everyone. You really have to go into the history of this culture to understand what they believed and why the apparition of Mary turned them toward Christianity.
The Jews are forever gratefull that the catholics put their stamp of approval on the Old Testament.(/sarcasm) No rabbinical body decided upon the canon of the Old Testament. The canon was recognized by Israel and available as it was being written.
Daniel, a captive in Babylon, had a copy of Jeremiah written only a few years earlier and was studying it as scripture (Daniel 9:2). How is it that the Jews were able, through the Spirit of God to determine what was inspired yet we, according to you, would have no idea what was scripture unless the Catholic Church told us.
The Synod of Antioch, in A.D. 266, denounced the doctrine od Paul of Samasota as "foreign to the ecclisiastical canon". The Council of Nicea in 325 refers to "the Canon";and the Council of Laodicea said that only 'canonized' books of both the Old and New Testaments be read in church.
Yet none of those Councils deemed it necessary to list the canonized books, indicating that they were already well-known and accepted by common Christians the same way the Jews accepted their scripture.
It wasn't until the Third council of Carthage, in A.D.397 do we have the first decision on the canon. That is rather late if without it Christians didn't know what books were in the Old and new Testaments and therefore couldn't use them as Rome claims today.
The arrogance of Rome on this subject is sickening. Putting their so called "Stamp of approval" on what was already known and claiming authority on it is disgusting.
According to Paul, ordinary Christians are to judge what is truth (1 Corintians 14:37) and it was Peter who refered to Pauls writings as scripture long before Jerome.
Sorry but we can't agree even on this point.
It never fails when you debate Catholics. Eventually you get to the truth. You put as much faith in the writings and tradition of man as you do to the inspired word. Of course you have to do this or your faith, which is based mainly on non-biblical doctrine would crumble like a house of cards.
Please name one church father whos writings are considered to be the inspired word of God? (Please don't try the argument that Rome can deem them inspired. I refuted that claim in my last post on Rome canonizing scripture)
You claim you love to study the history of the Church try this.
The Pharisees claimed that Jesus was wrong. They were the guardians of the truth. They could trace their lineage back to Abraham. They had scripture and sacred "tradition" on their side. Sound familiar to you? It should you have basically used this same argument. this is what Jesus thought of their claim.
" Mark 7:8-9 8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men." 9 And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! (NIV)
Mark 7:13 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that." (NIV)
Matt 15:7-9 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 8 "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'" (NIV) "
So much for church history.
"I mean, we can point to the fathers, but who can "scripture only" people point to from history other than Paul? "If I have to make a choice between all the church Fathers or Paul, I'll take Paul. I'll stake my salvation on his writings over any early church fathers.
Who would we need to point too?
"Where are all these people who believed "scripture only?" Where and what are their writings? Which Church did they belong to? "
Where are they? Some in heaven, some here on earth.
Their writings? It's called the Word of God.
Which church do they belong to? You really need to look to the bible to understand what the church is. You "belong" to a church. We belong to Jesus and are the "church".
1 Pet 2:9 9 "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God",
We have Jesus as our authority, you have a pope. You have a priesthood, we are that royal priesthood.
Peter,who you claim head of your church, wrote this. He contradicts your doctrine of the priesthood.
Now I know you can point me to hundreds of writings over the last 2000 years to show me what Peter really meant, as seen through the eyes of your church. Don't bother. Peter has been silent for 2000 years on this. Unless he comes back and writes again I think I'll take him at his last writing on the subject.
As is typical in debates with Catholics I can't recall you using the bible as proof for any of your arguments. If you want to debate Scripture fine I'll respond to that. While the writings of the early church fathers are interesteing to read I find debating them on doctrinal matters useless unless,as I asked before, you can show me some proof that ANY of the writings by the early fathers are considered inspired by God.
I'll pray that God lifts the blinders from your eyes and you begin to look to Him for your answers not Jerome.
If you care to freepmail me I'll be overjoyed to continue the discussion, since we seem to be the last two posting.
If not, I wish you peace. Cap'n.
Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Saint of the Day Ping List.
Our Lady of Guadlalupe
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Roses bloomed
in December
on a hill,
unexpected promise
to a bishop
who had his doubts.
A faithful hand
gathered them
perhaps unsure
why he had been given
this mission,
but still willing to obey.
As they cascaded to the floor
one by one,
revealing a mystery
to the amazement
of those gathered,
did you smile, Lady,
at their wonder
that the mundane
could be shattered
by the touch
of a loving God?
Is that the image on the tilma, or is it a painting?
BUMP
ignorance ( of Scriptures ) thine name is joshua. Tell me, when was father Abraham justified? before Isaac was born, or after? And if you are brave enough to venture any kind of rational response, try another one: in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, who is the Final arbiter of greivances between two believers? Scripture, or the Church?
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